What will Rep. Kevin McCarthy say about racism, antisemitism and white supremacy?

House Republicans have a lot of explaining to do!

Where is Rep. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy? He has some explaining to do!

Echo opinion published in The Washington Post by Karen Tumulty:

HELLO? Ya'think? No one is buying the idea that Donald Trump’s dinner last week at Mar-a-Lago with antisemite and white nationalist Nick Fuentes was some sort of aberration — even if Trump’s claim is true that Fuentes showed up unannounced in the company of rapper (and fellow antisemite) Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

That Trump would meet with bigots and conspiracy theorists was very much on brand for someone who sees loyalty to himself as the only character trait that matters. Trump, after all, claimed moral equivalence (“very fine people on both sides”) between the neo-Nazis who chanted in Charlottesville that Jews would not replace them and a group of counterprotesters, one of whom was murdered.

Which means things like the Mar-a-Lago dinner are surely going to continue to happen as Trump forges ahead with his bid for the GOP’s 2024, presidential nomination. 

And, with each instance, the far-right extremists who spew hate will continue nudging their way from the fringes into the mainstream of the (growing old!) Republican Party.

In the wake of the GOP’s disappointing performance in the midterm elections, it is plainly self evident that the party has a “Trump problem.” 

But, there is a deeper problem, and that is the (growing old and older.....!) Republican Party itself.

Republicans cannot move past Trump, as long as they cannot bring themselves to confront him and, by association, the element he attracts. This is not the party that had the fortitude to purge the hateful John Birch Society from its ranks in the mid-1960s. 

As former Republican National Committee spokesman Doug Heye put it to me, today’s Republicans still think they can “outrun the crocodile.”

(Can somebody cut and paste the statements made by Utah Senator Mitt Romney and former  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to give "dummy come alive" Rep. McCarthy as a rubric for his own statement?)

Since the dinner became public over the weekend, we have heard plenty of prominent Republicans denounce antisemitism, as though that is anything other than basic human decency. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who is reported to be considering a presidential bid of his own, tweeted that antisemitism is “a cancer” and declared: “We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.”

Republicans cannot move past Trump, as long as they cannot bring themselves to confront him and, by association, the element he attracts. This is not the party that had the fortitude to purge the hateful John Birch Society from its ranks in the mid-1960s. 

As former Republican National Committee spokesman Doug Heye put it to me, today’s Republicans still think they can “outrun the crocodile.”

Since the dinner became public over the weekend, we have heard plenty of prominent Republicans denounce antisemitism, as though that is anything other than basic human decency. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who is reported to be considering a presidential bid of his own, tweeted that antisemitism is “a cancer” and declared: “We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.”

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel issued a statement: “As I had repeatedly said, white supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican Party.”

But depressingly few were willing to even mention Trump himself.

One welcome exception was outgoing Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R). who told CNN: "I don’t think it’s a good idea for a leader that is setting an example for the country or the party to meet with an avowed racist or antisemite. 

And so it’s very troubling, and it shouldn’t happen. And we need to avoid those kinds of empowering the extremes. And when you meet with people, you empower.” 

Another was Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, who said on NewsNation: “President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table, and I think he should apologize.”

Come January, there will be fewer Republicans left in Congress willing to speak out when Trump does what he keeps doing. That in itself is a testament to where the party has positioned itself with regard to the crocodile, given how many of those who did take issue with him were either wiped out in Republican primaries this year or chose to retire.

And those who have followed Trump’s example in associating themselves with extremists and their ideas will have more clout within the institution. Earlier this year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) spoke at a conference organized by Fuentes, later claiming (as Trump has about last week’s dinner) that she didn’t know who he was; House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has promised, if he becomes speaker, to restore her committee assignments, which the Democratic-controlled House stripped the Georgia congresswoman of in 2021 because of her incendiary comments.

Meanwhile, don’t expect much by way of correctives to be offered as the GOP gets ready to elect its next party chair in January. McDaniel, who was handpicked by Trump to run the party after the 2016 election and who has been a model of obeisance to him since, has indicated she plans to run for another term.

There is grumbling in the party about McDaniel’s win-loss record, with South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem telling Fox News: “I don’t know a party that can continue to lose like we have and keep their jobs.” But none of them talked-about alternatives — who include defeated 2022 New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin and MyPillow chief executive and leading election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell — represent a turn away from Trump.

So Republican leaders should quit deluding themselves about the possibility of moving on from the former president, who continues to bring the worst people into their fold. They are along for the ride — even as it takes them over a cliff.

Republicans can't manage their own convention proof they can't govern

Achtung!

Democracy at the Republican convention was squelched during a failed attempt to "simulate" GOP unity about the Donald Trump and Mike Pence (nonsense) leadership candidates.  

"Trumpzis" prevailed.

Republicans will be unable to govern America when it's proven they can't even manage their own political convention in Cleveland.
No, seriously!

"This is disgusting," said Ken Cuccinelli, conservative party leader.

Chaos erupts on GOP convention floor after voice vote shuts down #Never Trump forces

Backroom unity talks failed, and so the party feuded publicly.

By Kyle Cheney

07/18/16 02:46 PM EDT

CLEVELAND — The Republican party came within a whisker of reaching the unity it had long sought Monday. What it got instead was convention floor chaos.

After mounting for weeks, tension exploded into a high-profile fight pitting the Donald Trump campaign and Republican National Committee leadership against a coalition of conservative activists and delegates from the "never Trump” movement.
The two sides were reduced to shouting at each other on national television after party leadership blocked a roll call vote on the convention rules, which virtually guarantee Trump the party nomination by requiring delegates to vote in accordance with their state’s primary or caucus results. Trump critics were unlikely to be able to vote down the rules — and even less likely to achieve their ultimate goal of replacing the rules with ones that “unbound” pledged delegates — but they were seeking a platform to voice their displeasure with Trump and demonstrate the strength of their movement.  (Republicans only follow the rules when they want to but never when the majority rules!)

They almost got the vote. The Never Trump delegates joined forces with a small but aggrieved band of GOP delegates — led Virginia delegate Ken Cuccinelli and Utah Sen. Mike Lee — furious with party leaders and the Trump campaign for their role last week in blocking a slew of changes to party rules that conservative activists favored. Together, they shocked Trump campaign and GOP leaders on Monday afternoon by producing signatures from a majority of delegates from 11 states and territories, far more than the seven jurisdictions necessary to force an up-or-down vote on the convention’s rules package. That would’ve left approval up fate to 2,472 delegates on the convention floor — and embarrassed Trump regardless of the results.

But when the time came to present the proposed rules to the full convention, the combined Trump campaign-party leadership faction crushed the rebellious faction.  (Well, well, well, so much for Democracy, it has left the floor at the Cleveland convention.)

Party leaders, anticipating an anti-Trump push, had installed Arkansas Rep. Steve Womack to preside over the convention – bucking recent history of having the Republican House leader preside over the proceedings. Womack initially determined on a voice vote that the rules package – as approved by a convention committee last week – would be adopted without changes. 

But a furious outcry among conservative delegates erupted, with hundreds of support chanting for their right to a “roll call vote.”

Then, Womack stepped off the stage and let the RNC and Trump campaign whips go to work. With the lists of insurgent delegates in hand, dozens of aides worked the convention floor for about 15 minutes, collecting their own set of withdrawal signatures. In the end, four of the initial 11 states saw enough delegates abandon the roll call effort to scuttle it: Minnesota, Maine, Iowa and the District of Columbia. Alaska, according to the RNC, failed to submit enough valid signatures to begin with.
Alaska delegate Fred Brown told POLITICO he did get the required signatures. “I had secured more than enough signatures from Alaska delegates, but the convention secretary was not at the designated location where I was told to submit them,” he said. “Some said she was hiding. Others said she was protected by guards. Regardless, I was told I could also present the signatures from the floor. Nevertheless, when the vote occurred, my mic was not turned on. When I attempted to present these signatures at the stage, my effort was ignored by the chair, and the security guard turned me away.“

When Womack announced the result from the stage, the rebellious delegates went ballistic, swamping the continuing proceedings with screams and still demanding a vote. Colorado’s Unruh convinced her state’s delegates to walk out and screamed for nearby Texas’ to do the same, though they declined. Morton Blackwell, a conservative Virginia delegate told POLITICO that the process was “crooked.” Blackwell, a veteran RNC member of 32 years, guessed that several of the delegations that withdrew from the effort were plants by the RNC to convince insurgents they had reached their goal. He wondered whether the bitterness they felt would linger.

For their part, RNC and Trump campaign aides involved in the convention argued that many of the delegates who signed forms demanding a vote had been duped, told at delegation breakfasts Monday morning that they would be supporting Trump by joining the effort.

Iowa delegate Marlys Popma, who helped lead the state’s effort to support the roll call vote, rejected that suggestion. “People knew exactly what they were signing,” she said.

“This is about the full assault on the delegates,” Waters said in an interview, while aides frantically bounced back and forth collecting signatures from friendly delegations. At one point Monday, 11 jurisdictions had signed on: Maine, North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Alaska, Colorado, Washington, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Minnesota and Virginia.

The scene, with party officials feuding in front of reporters and cameras, was a distressing one for a party looking to present a united front amid Trump’s battle with Hillary Clinton for the presidency.

And it was all the more frustrating for party leaders because they came an eyelash away from preventing it. 

Ken Cuccinelli of Virginia 

In the final hours before the voting Monday, Cuccinelli — a leader of the party’s conservative faction — reopened talks with Republican National Committee leaders in an attempt to forestall the public spectacle. The conversations, confirmed by GOP sources involved and by Cuccinelli, began late Sunday and continued into Monday morning. They were an attempt to revive negotiations that failed last week, when Cuccinelli pushed for changes to party rules that would encourage states to close their primaries to Democrats and independents.

For the second time in a week the two sides almost reached an accord, but just like the unity talks at last week’s pre-conevntion meetings, the negotiations again fell apart because Cuccinelli couldn't bring other conservative leaders – and especially Utah Sen. Mike Lee – on board.

As a condition of the renewed negotiations, RNC leaders demanded that Cuccinelli secure Lee’s support for the closed primary push. But Cuccinelli told POLITICO that it wasn’t Lee’s fight. He said the Utah senator told him “I’m not going to sell myself for some deal with the RNC.”

According to a source familiar with the talks, a Washington state delegate helped broker the renewed conversation between Cuccinelli and the RNC. In those talks, Cuccinelli said he’d accept a relatively modest version of a deal he asked for last week. He’d like to see states awarded a 20 percent bonus to their at-large delegate pool at the next national convention, and he’d also like the RNC to do away with an anti-transparency rule adopted last week: keeping the identities and contact information of the GOP’s convention rules committee secret.

The RNC agreed to the latter proposal and countered with an offer of 10 percent bonus at-large delegates instead. But without Lee, the RNC balked, opting for confrontation on the convention floor instead.

Backers of the conservative delegates and anti-Trump forces never expected to win a roll call vote on the floor, only to cause enough discomfort for party leaders to exert their will. But as their effort failed, they lashed out at leadership and created that discomfort anyway.

The conservative and anti-Trump delegates seethed in the aftermath of their failed bid for a vote, and they vowed to keep fighting as the convention went on.

"You will see more insurgency, because, and I have nothing to do with the fact that people now know that their voices were squelched," said anti-Trump Colorado delegate Kendal Unruh, the founder of the Free the Delegates movement, in a live interview on C-SPAN where she accused party leadership of using "strong-armed tactics." (Wake Up America- this that's how Trumpizis will govern if they are - God Forbid- elected. This must never happen. #NeverTrump)

"I have never in all my life, certainly in six years in the United States Senate, prior to that as a lifelong Republican, never seen anything like this," said Utah Sen. Mike Lee, one of the most prominent signatories to the push for a roll call vote. "There is no precedent for this in parliamentary procedure. There is no precedent for this in the rules of the Republican National Convention. We are now in uncharted territory. Somebody owes us an explanation. I have never seen the chair abandoned like that. They vacated the stage entirely."

"It’s coercion masking as unity," Lee said later. "It may well be the case there were only 9 states that submitted the petition… if that’s the case, then it appears we did not satisfy the threshold," Lee continued.

New Hampshire Sen. Gordon Humphrey personally filed the signatures to the convention secretary — an exchange that followed after a frantic search to find the secretary before the deadline to submit the signatures. At the time, Never Trump leaders raised concerns that the secretary, Susie Hudson of Vermont, might intentionally avoid them to ensure the effort was defeated.

After the vote, he was livid: "The very unpleasant scene that unfolded here just a moment ago I think is a glimpse into the future of a trump presidency,” Humphrey told POLITICO. "We have seen the trump presidency and prototype many of his supporters if they are not fascists, act very much like fascists, shouting down the opposition, treating them roughly.”

“My first act after Mr. Trump’s nomination if that occurs will be to get up, walk out and go home,” he continued. “And after that I will resign from the Republican Party if that is the case."

Blackwell, the Virginia delegate, said he expects the fight is over now and will resume again in four years. If so, he added, there’s a positive takeaway.

“There were many more conservatives on the convention floor this time,” he said. Next time, he said, might be different.

Beatrice Peterson, Rachel Bade and Nick Gass contributed reporting.

Reince Priebus critique - another American who sold his soul

"...put the supposed good of the party over that of the nation. Trump would make a miserable, dangerous president — and Priebus must know it. A warning label should be affixed to Trump’s forehead."- Richard Cohen

Reince Priebus has joined others who have put the rhetoric of the GOP before the best interest of the nation

His name is difficult to associate with his rather dull personality. Nevetheless, "Reince" (or, as Rachel Maddow would say "rrrreeeeeeeenccce" with a rolling "r") is the robo talking head for the Republican National Commitee (RNC). In his role, he's asked to speak a lot on television. Unfortunately, the more "Rrrrreeenccce" speaks, the less people are inclined to listen to him.

Finally, an astute observer has publsihed an analysis about Mr. Priebus with which I agree, in The Washington Post.

By Richard Cohen Opinion writer May 16

I don’t know Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican Party (such as it is). He may be a very nice guy, what with a wife and kids and probably a car or two. Still, after watching him on the Sunday interview shows, I have concluded that the man has no pride, no shame and, almost certainly, no future. After Donald Trump loses the presidential election, the name Priebus will, like Quisling or even Boycott, take on a separate meaning: fool.

Priebus went from TV studio to TV studio, four in all, on a trudge of abasement, a ride of shame. He was asked about Trump’s womanizing, his attempts in the past to pass himself off as someone else (“John Miller,” “John Barron”-in other words, Trump's multiple personality disorder), his misogyny and his plan to bar all Muslims from the country (details to follow). The Mexican wall, did that come up? His belittling of John McCain, was that mentioned? His mockery of a physically handicapped reporter, did someone mention that?

There is so much to offend, so much to defend: the king’s ransom of insults and moronic plans, the childish take on torture, the misunderstanding of the Constitution, the veritable conviction of all Mexicans on the charge of rape, the distrust of NATO, the off-the-cuff suggestion that Japan and South Korea get their own nuclear weapons, and, for a moment or two, the notion that women who seek abortions should be somehow punished.

And so poor Priebus bobbed and weaved. Sometimes he said none of this mattered. Sometimes he said the people didn’t care (he could be right about that) and often he said Hillary Clinton was worse — worse about women, worse about honesty and worse in ways that Priebus didn’t mention but that Trump has. 

Clinton, it turns out, is a woman, and so during a break at one debate, she used the time to go to the bathroom and returned to the stage a trifle late. “I know where she went — it’s disgusting,” Trump said some days later. “I don’t want to talk about it. No, it’s too disgusting. Don’t say it, it’s disgusting.”

By the third or so Sunday show, Priebus had melded into Don Draper, the central figure of “Mad Men,” the long-running and quite wonderful television series. But instead of selling cigarettes, he was selling Trump. Both products are unhealthy, one for the body, one for the nation. Just as Draper put his own welfare and that of his advertising agency before that of cigarette smokers, Priebus and others put the supposed good of the party over that of the nation. Trump would make a miserable, dangerous president — and Priebus must know it. A warning label should be affixed to Trump’s forehead.

Donald Trump presidential campaign is all about money- shame on GOP

Although Donald Trump is receiving millions of dollars in free media coverage, as the politically labile candidate (he consumes television time like a dirigible) the fact is, his candidacy has been reduced to the issue of money- raising it by the GOP, not raising it and who gets the money after a candidate is nominated.

Donald Trump soaks up free media time like dirigibles consume helium.  Yet, his campaign is all about money.

Here's how I see it:

1.  Why give money?  Donald Trump declared he's running for president using his own money, without soliciting campaign contributions. Yet, because of his fiscal independence, Trump also created an unweildy campaign communications campaign. As a result, mainstream Republicans are understandably reluctant to give money to the Republcian National Committee (RNC), because there's no reason to support a leading candidate who apparently doesn't need money.

2.  Nominee money. At some point, the Republican nominee for president will receive money from the Republican National Committee (RNC) to conduct a national campaign. Obviously, Donald Trump would like to have his share of RNC money. There's no way the "Drumpf" (his family's name before being changed) can fund a national campaign, after he's spent an enormous amount of money in the primary elections.

3. Donors not giving money.  Although the populist right wing movement gets lots (too much) attention - mostly negative- the people who created this bombastic fringe group don't give the big bucks, like establishment Republicans. Obviously, if right wing extremists want to influence America's political agenda by continuing their obstructionist policies, they must give more money. There's no way right wingers can fill the fiscal void created by establishment Republcians who won't give to money to a candidate (like Donald Trump), someone they don't like.

At this point, Donald Trump is over his head with negative publicity and "under water" by spending his fortune on an inept political campaign. 

Nevertheless, the problem with the Republcian candidate isn't entirely about Donald Trump's brand of politics.  In fact, the Republcian brand of "compassionate conservatism" or just plain common sense conservatism is tarnished. This unbranding of the Republican party is now translated into financial language. In other words, if something in the Republican campaign to nominate a viable presidential candidate doesn't change soon, the party is likely to go morally bandrupt and the lack of money will quickly follow.

Republican National Committee and New Majority Agenda - Dual Negativity Against a Progressive Agenda

Now President Obama has two groups running negative TV advertisements against him, at the same time.

Obama is running for re-election as President against Republican National Committee and New Majority Agenda ads, running nearly back to back. Obama's response must be equal in its impact.

Both well funded negative groups are creating a synergistic attack, meaning each potent TV ad increases the lethal lying impact of the other. It's no wonder Obama's re-election campaign is going deep early on for the facts on Romney's job outsourcing history at Bain Capital and his lack of credibility in not releasing more than 2 years of tax returns. In the face of being out numbered on television and outspent by opponents, the President must forcefully and definitively respond. To do otherwise will give this year's election away to right wing extremists who want to force regressive tax and social policies against our nation under the smokescreen banner of freedom.

Right wing T-Party extremists ignore freedoms from fear of want and financial insecurity. Rather, their concept of freedom seems limited to second amendment gun rights, before all others. Among the freedoms that come and go on their radical right wing list, voting rights appear to be expendable.

A currently running Republican National Committee ad softly tells voters how it's okay to elect change in our nation's leadership. In other words, President Obama is a nice man but let's not re-elect him because, after all, the entire US deficit is his fault.

This ridiculous deficit premise ignores the history of our national debt, a financial condition that coincides with all our nation's wars, beginning with the War of Independence. President Obama inherited a national debt grown by the Republican Bush administration's two unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while creating a new entitlement program called the Medicare D drug benefit.

An ad by the Republican National Committee targets Independent voters who are undecided about voting for President Obama, but apparently like him personally as being a good family man.

For President Obama to win re-election and save the nation's progressive agenda, he must go on the offense and keep up relentless pressure against the dual barrage of negative ads. These ads will obviously grow in number and intensity. Therefore, it's essential for President Obama to stand firm by pushing back with facts about Republican Romney's outsourcing business history at Bain Capital and his mystifying tax status reticence.

Nonetheless, polarizing negative messages won't improve the nation's economic condition. There's no Republican plan to improve the nation's economy. Cutting taxes, like Republicans tout to improve the economy, will only improve the economic condition of rich people while cutting middle class safety nets.

A shallow economic recovery plan reliant on tax cutting is especially weird, considering it was the Bush Republican wars and entitlement expansion that spiraled the national debt out of control.

Of course, a political re-election strategy can't be totally dependent on Romney's business and tax history.

Given the pressure of unlimited money and the resulting synergistic efforts in place to defeat him, President Obama must divide the Republican party by raising legitimate questions about Governor Romney's competency to run the nation.

In his rebuttal to Republican lies, President Obama must take no prisoners. He must forcefully respond.

Republican National Committee and New Majority Agenda Political Advertisements: Cut From the Same Cloth

Now President Obama has two groups running negative TV advertisements against him, at the same time. 

Obama is running for re-election as President against Republican National Committee and New Majority Agenda ads, running nearly back to back. Obama's response must be equal in its impact.

Both well funded negative groups are creating a synergistic attack, meaning each potent TV ad increases the lethal lying impact of the other. It's no wonder Obama's re-election campaign is going deep early on for the facts on Romney's job outsourcing history at Bain Capital and his lack of credibility in not releasing more than 2 years of tax returns. In the face of being out numbered on television and outspent by opponents, the President must forcefully and definitively respond. To do otherwise will give this year's election away to right wing extremists who want to force regressive tax and social policies against our nation under the smokescreen banner of freedom.

Right wing T-Party extremists ignore freedoms from fear of want and financial insecurity. Rather, their concept of freedom seems limited to second amendment gun rights, before all others. Among the freedoms that come and go on their radical right wing list, voting rights appear to be expendable.

A currently running Republican National Committee ad softly tells voters how it's okay to elect change in our nation's leadership. In other words, President Obama is a nice man but let's not re-elect him because, after all, the entire US deficit is his fault.

This ridiculous deficit premise ignores the history of our national debt, a financial condition that coincides with all our nation's wars, beginning with the War of Independence. President Obama inherited a national debt grown by the Republican Bush administration's two unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while creating a new entitlement program called the Medicare D drug benefit.

An ad by the Republican National Committee is targeting Independent voters who are undecided about voting for President Obama, but apparently like him personally as being a good family man.

For President Obama to win re-election and save the nation's progressive agenda, he must go on the offense and keep up relentless pressure against the dual barrage of negative ads. These ads will obviously grow in number and intensity. Therefore, it's essential for President Obama to stand firm by pushing back with facts about Republican Romney's outsourcing business history at Bain Capital and his mystifying tax status reticence.

Nonetheless, polarizing negative messages won't improve the nation's economic condition. There's no Republican plan to improve the nation's economy. Cutting taxes, like Republicans tout to improve the economy, will only improve the economic condition of rich people while cutting middle class safety nets.

A shallow economic recovery plan reliant on tax cutting is especially weird, considering it was the Bush Republican wars and entitlement expansion that spiraled the national debt out of control.

Of course, a political re-election strategy can't be totally dependent on Romney's business and tax history.

Given the pressure of unlimited money and the resulting synergistic efforts in place to defeat him, President Obama must divide the Republican party by raising legitimate questions about Governor Romney's competency to run the nation.

In his rebuttal to Republican lies, President Obama must take no prisoners. He must forcefully respond.